


Divertissement

by sistermagpie



Category: Freaks (1932)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:18:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistermagpie/pseuds/sistermagpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Schlitzie has a way of making the world more magical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divertissement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweetcarolanne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/gifts).



> Phroso is in a bad mood at the start of this, but not angst-level bad, I hope!

The end of the season always got Phroso down. Some cirkys welcomed the cooler weather that made sleeping easier and the animal cages smell better. But Phroso never liked endings. Sure he knew he had a job again with Madam Tetrallini come May first, but that didn’t make it any easier to say good-bye.  
  
It wasn’t just the cooler weather that was getting Phroso down. Something was different this year. He felt like everything was ending or had ended without him noticing. Not just the season. More than once Phroso had woken up with his heart beating fast, feeling like he’d left something important some ways back, something precious that was now lying half-covered in mud by the side of some _chemin de terre_. Ever since that night in the storm…  
  
“Aw, nuts,” Phroso said to himself. “Don’t be such a _poule mouillée_.”  
  
He was outside his caravan, half-in and half-out of his bathtub, hooking up a big tube that resembled a flexible shower head. When he got it hooked up right it would spray enormous rainbow bubbles, while tinier bubbles spit out the little pipe in the back, leaving a trail around the stage. “That’ll show ‘em,” Phroso muttered, giving his wrench an impatient twist. “They’ll be rolling in the aisles.”  
  
Across the fairground, Elvira stumbled out from between a couple of wagons. In her arms she carried a shapeless pile of fabrics, the pile so high her tiny head barely poked over the peak. Costumes, probably, but Phroso couldn’t tell what kind. On top was something pink that kept popping into her face. She disappeared with them into the empty big top  
The “they” that Phroso pictured rolling in the aisles included a trio of bull-headed flatties that had planted themselves in the front row the night before. All through Phroso’s act they hooted and shouted, doing their best to ruin the show. It was all Phroso could do to stop himself from running over and clocking them one. But unless he wanted to find a new career, he couldn’t do any such thing.  
  
Phroso sighed. Every clown has to deal with hecklers, and these three were really no worse—or drunk—than most. But Phroso was strangely sensitive these days. Just this morning he had a fight with Venus over something he couldn’t even remember now. She’d been coming out of the little red wagon where the new sideshow attraction was being kept. Venus had taken over much of her care and feeding. After the fight, she went off into town with Francis and the Hilton sisters and Phroso couldn’t blame her for being sore at him. He was about as pleasant as a hot tooth these days and he didn’t know what to do about it.  
  
Johnny Eck, Joseph Josephine and Angelino came strolling across the grounds. Phroso turned away, stretching out his tube, his eye on that little red wagon.  
  
“Hey, Phroso! How’s the tub going?” Johnny said.  
  
“She’ll be slaying ‘em in a few days,” he mumbled, not sounding like he believed it much. He kept his eyes fixed on the fairgrounds. Jenny Lee was now dragging an old Victrola into the Big Tent.  
  
Johnny hopped lightly onto a stool to look inside the tub. “What’s the matter with you these days, Phroso? You’re about as jolly as an old shoe.”  
“What do you know about shoes?” Phroso muttered.  
  
“Touchy!” Angelino laughed. “You still a clown, Phroso? Or are you going to audition to join Venus’s menagerie!”  
  
“With that growl he could definitely be a lion,” said Johnny.  
  
“I was going to say a horse’s ass,” said Joseph Josephine.  
  
They were only joking, Phroso knew, but he wasn’t in the mood for laughing. “Go on, get lost!” he nearly shouted. The last thing he needed was more hecklers.  
  
“Sheesh. Let’s get out of here,” said Angelino, rolling his eyes.  
  
“If I were you,” said Johnny. “I’d use that bathtub to soak your head.”  
  
Phroso shrugged. Who cared what they thought? He watched them over his shoulder until they disappeared into Prince Randian’s caravan. For a second, Phroso was glad they were gone. But when he turned back to the now nearly-empty grounds, he felt worse than ever.  
  
“Keep it up, Phroso,” he grumbled too himself. “You’ll be as popular as jake leg. Everybody loves a grumpy clown.”  
  
He tossed his wrench down, planning to go to Prince Randian’s and apologize for being such a sap. As he climbed out of the tub he saw Elvira again, followed by Jenny Lee. Elvira had something clutched to her chest, like a plate or a picture, and the two girls were giggling with excitement.  
  
“What are they doing?” said Phroso finally to himself. He could never predict what any of the pinheads might be up to—sometimes he didn’t want to know. But he was curious now. So Phroso pulled on his shirt and went over to the Big Top.  
  
The music started just as he got to the entryway. It took Phroso a second to recognize the tune as a piece that Cleopatra used to use in her act. “Valse de Flowers” was what she called it. The orchestra used to play it while she twirled and smiled above the crowd, showing off, looking down on them all. Phroso never cared for it, but there were a lot of fellows in the audience who thought it was high culture.  
  
The orchestra wasn’t playing the piece now, of course. The version drifting out from the Big Top was the tinny, artificial recording that Cleopatra used for practice.  
Warily, Phroso pushed aside the flap of the tent.  
  
The light inside was dim, except in the very center, where someone—Elvira probably, since she was very clever about these things—had turned on the spotlight and pointed it at the center ring. That ring was now decorated and transformed into something like a wonderland: dressing screens draped with flowered sashes, bright pink feather boas laid out on the floor, a dozen scattered flower pots from Madam Tetrallini.  
  
Phroso noticed these things without really seeing them. His eyes were focused on the dancers in the center. Elvira and Jenny Lee stood on either side of the ring, each in one of Cleopatra’s old kimonos, swaying and waving her arms almost shyly to the music. In the center of the spotlight—of course—was Schlitzie.  
  
She’d slipped the pink tutu over her dress—that was the springy thing he’d seen Elvira carrying. It was crooked, with one side pointing up to the sky, but that was just Schlitzie all over. She had feathers in her hair and a fluffy boa on her shoulders and bright pink slippers on her feet. She was so tiny, Phroso thought, she almost looked like she ought to be set atop a birthday cake.  
  
Phroso didn’t know much about music, not the kind with all the strings and harps. Not ballet. He didn’t get it. But Schlitzie did. She was dancing around in her slippers like a little bird. A strange bird. A bird that didn’t fly quite straight, but a beautiful bird just the same. She was telling a story with her dancing, one that Phroso couldn’t completely understand. But that was nothing new, not completely understanding a story Schlitzie was telling. You could understand enough if you just didn’t think about it.  
  
Schlitzie skipped from one side of the ring to the other, hopping over to Jenny Lee, twirling by Elvira. On her signal, the other girls joined in, spinning slowly and scattering paper flowers. Then the music rose and Schlitzie rose with it, stepping on tip-toe as best she could (which was not that well), flapping her arms gently and turning her eyes up to the empty trapeze overhead.  
  
Phroso believed she might actually take flight.  
  
His breath caught because for a moment, just for a moment, he felt like he was seeing a different Schlitzie, no less real than the one he knew, one who never had trouble seeing far away things, and was the perfect size for whatever pretty dress she wanted, and could sing along to any song on the radio just as well as Venus and tell a hell of a joke. Madam Tetrallini would have said that this was the Schlitzie God saw. Phroso always thought Madam Tetrallini was a little nuts, but now he wasn’t so sure.  
  
Whatever Schlitzie Phroso had seen, she had taken all Phroso’s sadness away. The black dog that had followed him around for weeks was gone. Just like that.  
  
“Bravo!” he bellowed when the music came to an end. “Bravo Schlitzie! Bravo Jenny Lee! Bravo Elvira!”  
  
The two sisters ran and hid behind the nearest tent pole, giggling. Schlitzie, too, was uncharacteristically shy, covering her face as Phroso came over.  
  
“Schlitzie, that was beautiful!”  
  
She curled around herself in embarrassment and tucked her head into her dress.  
  
“Wherever did you learn to dance like that?”  
  
Schlitzie batted weakly with her hand, as if brushing away a fly. From inside the dress came a muffled reply. “You don’t learn to dance,” he thought she said. Then she added, “I put butter on my feet. The Queen will like it.” Or something like that—Phroso didn’t quite catch that last part.  
  
“Well, I thought I was at the Paris Ballet, that’s all,” Phroso said. “I thought maybe you were going to be the new star.”  
  
Schlitzie peeked out from her dress, then back again, then up once more. Her big brown eyes darted right and left, and then she threw her arms around Phroso’s waist and squeezed. Over her head he saw Elvira and Jenny Lee jumping up and down and holding hands. Phroso almost wanted to jump along with them.  
  
Schlitzie let go and slipped into a silk kimono the girls had found somewhere. She held out her arm for Phroso to escort her to her wagon. That gave Phroso an idea. Why shouldn’t Schlitzie see a real ballet? She could get all dolled up in costume jewelry she loved. Hadn’t he once talked about taking Schlitzie shopping when they got to Paris? What was he waiting for? Paris wasn’t far away….  
  
* * *  
  
Michel Tournure did not like the ballet. He did not appreciate having to sit still for three hours. His mother told him that the stories on the stage were exciting and made especially for children his age (which was 7), but all Michel saw was people running and jumping up and down and never speaking.  
  
Tonight Mama had promised him something _vraiment fantastique_ : A princess under a magic spell that turned her into a bird. This, Michel admitted, sounded interesting. Yet by intermission he knew he had been tricked. Dancing, dancing, dancing once again. The girl in question was no bird, and Michel was pretty sure she was no princess either.  
  
Michel grumbled his way out to the lobby at intermission, dreading having to ever return to his seat.  
  
“Be a good boy,” his mother said, “and Maman will get you a _petit gâteau_.”  
  
The cake was adequate, but nothing special, and now it was gone. Maman chatted with a large-bellied man with a mustache. Michel wandered through the crowds and felt aggrieved. He was promised something _fantastique_ and found, as always, only people. Perhaps, he thought, it was time to stop expecting anything more.  
  
Michel pushed impatiently through cluster of grey-flanneled legs and polished shoes to the far end of the lobby. There were fewer people here: a couple of older boys looking even more bored than Michel, a pinched-face woman blowing her nose, and three middle-aged ladies hissing at each other in alarmed whispers, and pointing at the stairs.  
  
Michel, who made it a policy to always investigate anything that seemed to have offended someone, looked toward the lushly-carpeted stairs himself. There at the bottom was friendly-looking man and beside him…  
  
If Michel had still had his _petit gâteau_ he would have dropped it in surprise. Beside the man stood a creature in violet. Her face and head were like no human’s he had ever seen. She was tiny, not much bigger than Michel himself, in a silk dress the color of pansies. Jewels sparked on her wrists and neck—amethysts the size of plums. Kumquats even! Only royalty would have treasures like that. And sticking up from her strange and wonderful head, tall enough to occasionally tickle the nose of the ordinary man, was a bright orange feather.  
  
Michel blinked and rubbed his eyes. Without even realizing it he drew closer, and now he saw the princess had two ladies in waiting, one in blue and one in red with feathers to match.  
  
“Hello,” someone said. It was the ordinary man. Probably an ambassador, Michel thought, attending the princess and her retinue. Michel’s father knew an ambassador and he was ordinary as well. “They call me Phroso. How’s tricks?”  
  
Michel stared at the ladies. “Are you a princess?” he asked the creature in purple.  
  
Her answer was half-bird, half human. Ambassador Phroso translated. “Schlitzie is the last of the Aztecs,” he said somberly.  
  
Michel nodded. There was no doubt this was true. “How were you turned into a bird?” he asked.  
  
Princess Schlitzie cocked her head to the side and smiled, revealing surprisingly large teeth. She reached out a hand just past Michel’s line of vision and after a momentary tickling of his ear, pulled it back holding a shiny bright coin.  
  
Michel’s hand flew to his own ear that had just produced gold!  
  
Princess Schlitzie waved the coin in front of his wide eyes. “Magic,” she said.  
  
Michel nodded, beyond speech.  
  
Magic.  
  
When the ballet was over, Michel hurried into the lobby. He craned his neck desperately for one last glimpse of Princess Schlitzie. But the crowds blocked his way.  
“Michel, _qu’est-ce que tu fais_?” his mother scolded. “You know you aren’t to run off on your own.”  
  
“The princess, Maman!” he said. “You have to see her!” Maman hadn’t believed his tales of meeting the bird princess in person, and Michel was determined she should see Schlitzie for herself.  
  
“I saw the princess, Michel,” she said, petting his hair, totally uncomprehending. “The swan died on the stage. It was very sad, I know. Poor Odette.”  
  
Michel rolled his eyes. “Not Odette!” he said. “And she’s not a swan! Schlitzie! Schlitzie!”  
  
But mother was already distracted by the return of the mustached man. She would never believe him. Perhaps—this was a horrible thought—but perhaps he really had imagined the whole thing. Bird women? Princesses? Magic? Was any of it real?  
  
He allowed Maman to take his hand and lead him out of the theater into the rainy night. They waited on the curb for their car, the mustached man holding Maman’s umbrella so that it didn’t cover Michel’s head at all. Beside them a pair of girls with thick glasses pushed their way to a car with a plump older couple that were probably their parents.  
  
There was a chill in the air that made Michel think of endings. The mustached man rumpled his hair. His big hand was sweaty and his coat smelled like rain and cigars. He hated the man, and Maman for talking to him, and ballet and everything about Paris that night. Michel turned away and frowned up the street.  
  
That’s when he caught sight of the old jalopy. The car had no top and sticking up out of the backseat like the jet of a rocket Michel saw a bright orange feather.  
  
“Schlitzie!”  
  
Phroso was just getting in behind the wheel, taking the princess back to a fancy hotel someplace. It was strange he drove such an ugly car—but maybe that was a precaution to avoid bandits.  
  
“Schlitzie! Princess!” Michel shouted. The ambassador man started up the car.  
  
Michel took off down the street just as they pulled away, his patent leather shoes splashing in the puddles.  
  
He didn’t catch the car. Maman scolded him for running off. The man in the mustache pinched him and said it was an accident.  
  
But when he thought about that night, for the rest of his life, Michel only remembered a bright orange feather as it disappeared around the corner in the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Wendy and Wigwam!


End file.
